


business transactions

by troisdent



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Business Partners, Canon Compliant, Character Development, Character Study, Copious Dungeons & Dragons Words For No Reason Whatsoever, Fleshing Out, Fluff, Friendship, Gambling, Gen, Minor Canonical Character(s), Nonbinary Character, Nonverbal Communication, Other, POV Minor Character, travelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 18:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12173907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troisdent/pseuds/troisdent
Summary: “Hey there,” Ash says at the goliath, all nonchalant and smooth-sweet like they’ve gotta be. Their ankle hurts too much to stand up, rest their weight on their hip, but they put their hands behind their head to seem casual as best they can. “You’re a mighty big fella, huh? I like your lithoderms.”





	business transactions

**Author's Note:**

> yes, these are characters that exist! for 1.5 scenes, collectively. yes, i did write 10k for characters that existed for 1.5 scenes. yeah, yes, mhm
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: minor description of violence at the beginning, emetophobia for near the middle, alcohol near the end, & like. gambling? throughout the entire thing
> 
> & ash is always here. always here, catchin em all

So, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to steal bread in a city where food is hard to come by.

_The Alps are beautiful this time of year,_ said the sword merchant to the customer, all the way back in Goldcliff two weeks ago.

Her customer laughed, nodded, said, _Absolutely. We could all use a bit of beautiful nowadays, what with all of the street rats running around._ Looked at Ash a little bit pointedly out of the corner of her eye.

They were right. The Alps are beautiful, for the rich. They’re also cold, and infertile, and cold, and have to fucking import their bread. Street rats like Ash can’t afford imported goods.

When Ash can’t afford something, they crack out the sleight-of-hand checks and they take it. Who knew that the shop they were stealing from was owned by a gang of goliaths? They didn’t know that. They didn’t even know that goliath gangs were a thing, that goliaths hung out in cities, that goliaths stayed with people they weren’t directly related to. None of this is common knowledge.

They curl harder into the grave they dug themself into, shaking from the effort it takes to not cry out. Or, they curl harder into the fetal position, shaking from the cold. A bit too late to feel embarrassed about the crowds that watched them get picked up by the scruff of their jacket. It’s not like it was hard for the shopkeeper to throw them in the back alley, sick the others on them.

It was just overkill to break their ankle and spit on them, though. At least, Ash thinks so.

They’re only alone for a few long moments before someone comes back. It hurts, but they sit all the way up to watch, twitch their mouth all the way into a big, threatening smile.

A large figure stands in the distance, head down. The streetlights shine up off the tip of their hood just like they shine off the snow in front of them. For all the industrial brightness, the artificial shadows hide their face from clear view. The rigid muscles and functional fat are still obvious, glinting all large and importantly like a weapon would.

And yeah, Ash doesn’t know goliath customs too well. They sure know city customs, though.

You get tricky, you get unlucky, you get caught, you get finished off. This kid looks like a trainee, which makes it even more likely; the little ones like Ash are easy experience for new recruits. The others sent them, Ash thinks, half-deliriously, to see if they have what it takes, are okay with bashing in a few skulls, cracking a couple of jaws.

“Hey there,” they say at the goliath, all nonchalant and smooth-sweet like they’ve gotta be. Their ankle hurts too much to stand up, rest their weight on their hip, but they put their hands behind their head to seem casual as best they can. “You’re a mighty big fella, huh? I like your lithoderms.”

The goliath steps out from the shadows, now fully into the gleaming lantern-light. They look smaller, now—younger, less imposing—but their face is just as blank. They’ve got one hand shoved up the sleeve of their other arm like they’re concealing a weapon. A knife, a club, a shortsword. It’s silly, almost. The other kid could just kill Ash with their bare hands, save themself the trouble of polishing metal later.

They smile accommodatingly, as if chatting is all that the goliath is aiming to do. “It’s pretty nice right now, yeah? Figured it was all gonna be snowstorms and wind. Hasn’t actually snowed much since I got up here, though.”

Crunch, crunch. The slush seems to crack under the goliath child’s boots.

Magic fizzles under Ash’s fingertips like electricity, too hard to control just yet and all the more powerful for it. They breathe out hard, grind their teeth. They’ve only got one spell slot left and they never could remember their cantrips.

Ash’s voice quiets, even as they try to hold back their tremors. “I mean, aside from, from all the, uh… all the snow on the ground, now, ha.” They gesture at the blanket of white under foot, pulling their terrifyingly wandless fingers from the hair at the nape of their neck, readying them.

The goliath pulls their hand out from their cuff, Ash is a second too slow to cast a thunderwave, and an apple drops onto the ground.

Ash flinches back, less startled from the sound the fruit made falling down and more startled by the goliath following suit. The other kid plops right to the ground afterwards, cross-legged all lopsided like no one ever taught them how to sit right. Their butt hits so hard that sleet gets all over Ash’s lap, a little fleck flies onto their cheek.

Huh.

“Mn’kay,” says Ash, a little faint, dizzy, “I can roll with that too.” Then, ‘cause their momma raised them right, or maybe not at all, they choose not to look a gift boar in the tusk. A dart of movement and the apple’s been wiped off on their pants, goes right into their mouth.

The apple munches, yeah, but it doesn’t chomp, not like it’s supposed to. It’s the driest fruit Ash has ever had, tastes like someone’s covered it in salt to keep it from spoiling.

Ash has eaten maggots. It’s fucking delicious.

After they shove it past their jaw, core and all, but before they finish chewing, they glance back up. Their bumpy grey savior has their head in a palm, is drawing little circles in the snow almost reverently, like they somehow mean something.

They didn’t notice before, were too scared to really perceive anything aside from danger-danger- _danger,_ but the kid is wearing rags. If Ash had thought they were part of a well-off gang before, they certainly don’t now. Street rats stick together, as long as they can be of use to each other.

Isn’t too hard to be charming with food in your mouth, Momma always said. Didn’t say. Ash’s voice comes out all smothered around it. A chunk goes flying. “You got a name?”

That catches the kid’s attention, if only barely, if only it could even be called attention. They slowly tilt their head to the side in a very strange, very lethargic cock, then point down to the snow by their knees. There is a picture of a face with tattoos (markings?) on it, complete with dots for eyes and a straight line mouth.

“Yeah, you’re a goliath, got it. S’at a thing y’all do?” Ash stamps their one good foot, feeling all the sore and shooting pain of the other one now that the adrenaline’s gone out. “Naming conventions, ‘n all? Kids are named capital-G ‘Goliath’ until they’re thirty-five—sorry, big-kid-aged—and then they get new ones?”

Ash is pretty sure that’s not true. The only adult goliath they ever got acquainted with had three names, but none of them were ‘Goliath.’

They squint at them. Shoot, the kid does look thirty-five, as far as Ash can tell. Which would make them twelve in goliath, ten in human, seven in orc... Ash is nearly forty-seven. They’re older, and they were afraid. Psh.

They squint even harder. “...No name. Y’sure?”

The goliath finally makes a facial expression, this time in the form of a frown. They point, again, at their snow drawings. Ash isn’t sure if that’s in agreement or not.

“Shake your head, nod, yes or no?”

The goliath shrugs—capital-G ‘Goliath’ shrugs.

Ash shrugs back. “Cool, whatever,” they say, sickly-pleasant again, “that’s you, G.” Thought’s gone out the window now that this big strong person has shown an interest in helping them. They scoot closer despite their breeches being all soaked and their ankle being all fucked, all the way until they could reach out and touch, reach out and strangle, if they really wanted to, if they could fit their fingers all the way around their neck.

They do reach out to Goliath, but not the whole way just yet. It’s a gesture they remember from the auctioneers in Rockport, the mobsters in Goldcliff, the gamblers in all the little towns all the way through.

They hold out their hand for a business shake.

“Name’s Ash.” There’s a sliver of teeth showing in their grin, a twinkle in their eye. Their tone is only half-joking, the other half fierce in something that wouldn’t be there if they weren’t so hungry and so broke. “Think I owe you some capital, partner. How d’you feel about a little life debt?”

Goliath doesn’t shake their hand, but they also don’t shake Ash off when they follow them around to avoid getting trampled. Ain’t that what blood siblings are for, really?

 

 

 

Ash steps past the metal sheet with all the crude energy of a feral cat, quick with their feet in a way that’s rushed. In what is sure to be a miracle, it isn’t knocked over on top of the two of them. They haven’t grown out of being hungry yet.

“Howdy, buddy,” they say, holding up their find and waving it around in plain sight. Their grin is stiff from curdling exhaustion and apprehension, but their movements are loose in a way that's practiced. “I got you.”

For a few days, they’ve managed to commandeer this end of the alley. It’s in the back of Neverwinter, far from downtown, just a dip and a turn from that grocery store off of that one street. You know, the one where that wolf-spider walked in wet cement a million years ago, left tracks? It’s hard to get to, it’s out of the way, it’s shitty, and that’s the point. If they push some cans and sheets around, it’s almost like no one knows they’re there; just two invisible kids, yes siree.

Goliath doesn’t even look up.

Ash’s expression drops. They went through all that trouble, all that still-raw-ankle-pain, and the fucker ignores them. Through the exhaustion, something like anger begins to rot in them. Fuck it, they throw the thing at Goliath.

It misses terribly, doesn’t even land within a foot of them, is embarrassing. The momentum causes it to roll out of its paper wrapping before settling, revealing an entire loaf of bread. Fortunately, it doesn’t really get on the bare ground. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hit them so hard it breaks their nose. Ash feels like hocking a loogie on them for good measure.

Really, getting the food was less of a scavenging ordeal and more of a hit to their pride, of which they already don’t have much. That was most of the issue.

_Oh, you poor thing,_ said the bakerlady, _you said you haven’t eaten for a week?_

Um, yes ma’am. A few months, even. Actually, they have never eaten in their entire life. Their stomach is a black pit of misery and bag-tied dead kittens, but they didn’t eat the dead kittens, because that would be eating. And they have never eaten in their entire life.

She gasped, full-body and unnecessary, jostling the perfect white of her bleached apron. _Here, take this. I couldn’t in my right mind turn you away with nothing!_

It didn’t even matter whether they were convincing or not. She wanted to believe them so that she could fake some inconsequential charity work, be a humanitarian. They got used, they used her, and now they feel dirty and ashamed. They aren’t tall enough to deal well with being degraded.

And, honestly? Having to walk downtown fucking sucked.

Goliath continues twining together the pieces of.. bark? Fabric? Plant fibers? Their fingers are so big that they’ve got to hold the other end of the string with their teeth so they don’t drop it. They’ve been at it for a while now, even when the two of them have had to hitch rides on the backs of caravans or sleep in trees instead of cities. A small pile of shoddy bracelets has begun to form—the contents of which, Ash has to admit, is getting better with every try.

Distantly, Ash feels even more angry.

“You know no one will buy those, right?” They glare knives, walking close enough that they could elbow Goliath in the neck without really trying. It’s a tempting thought; they know damn well that they’re bony, could really bruise someone with it if they aimed well enough, tried hard enough.

G simply finishes the bracelet they’re making, double-knotting it in place.

Ash breathes out loudly through their nose. And again, shakier. Their voice gets lower and even more annoyed, their lip curling from the red-hot feeling in the pit of their chest, and they continue, “You spend _so much_ of our money on beads, but we’re just gonna—”

They’re cut off by Goliath shoving a palm in their face, bracelet in hand. They pause, thoroughly bested and even more humiliated.

The beads spell out A – S – H.

Without any other interaction, Goliath finally stands up, brushes off their trousers and makes to go pick up the loaf of bread. Their face, usually a light blue-green, looks more purple than it should be. Ash makes a mental note that purple is, uh, no longer their favorite color, thanks.

 

 

 

People, as it turns out, will indeed buy bracelets off of kids on the street.

Ash has to hold them on their arms because they can’t fit over Goliath’s wrists, limbs stretched out all stiff like an uptown mannequin, but their ego is already ruined from bread-bargaining and gift-receiving. Goliath makes a sign that says ‘FRENDSHIP BRACELITS – 25 silver a peace,’ and what they don’t have in written language they make up for in business tactics. The stony blankness of their features, just like Ash’s big smooth smile, tends to fuck over the people who try to haggle for less.

The price more than makes up for the gold they spent on beads, and then some. The next time the two of them need food, they buy it for themselves. It’s a feeling that Ash could get used to, being self-sufficient. Makes them feel like a person, maybe, not a permanent fixture of uselessness. They want that. They want that.

By the end of the week, all of the pile is gone. Goliath sets out to make more, and Ash sets out to think up even better money-making strategies.

(Ash keeps the one they were given in their pocket. It seems almost too important to wear, somehow. Making the string fray is the last thing they want, especially after blowing up on their new partner for something unnecessary. As much as they can’t bring themself to admit it, making these was a good idea.

They stroke over the hard metal and plastic, smooth against their fingertips. In a choking, absent way, the movement is almost fond.

In a choking, absent way, they note that Goliath had labeled them as friendship bracelets.)

 

 

 

Walking up the flights of stairs, Ash feels giddy. So giddy, in fact, that they aren’t actually walking up the stairs with their own two feet.

Somewhere along the line, Goliath had scooped them up in a fit of excitement and hasn’t put them down since. Some distant train of thought tells them that they’ll have to request them to later, but for now the feeling is mutual, contagious, hyping. Thrill musses up their thinking, makes their brain move incredibly fast. Ash wants to laugh but their mouth is stretched too tight, all grin and no bite.

Goliath unlocks the door to their room with the hand that’s not cupping Ash’s spine, hits it open with their knee. Closes the door behind them with a heel.

Without them having to ask, say thank you, Goliath sets Ash down on the bed of their new hotel room. The sheets are soft instead of grimey, the floors polished. Everything is so clean and comfortable and lavishly _for average people_ that Ash could scream. Even the bounce of the spring mattress, the pause to take everything in, could not begin to diminish their collective elation.

Not missing a beat, Ash shoves their hands into their pockets, knuckles out some big handfuls and throws them up into the air. There had been a need for champagne poppers. Heavy coins come raining down like a rich person’s hail, only barely missing the chip of their pearly grin-exposed teeth. They don’t need to be frugal with all that money, not right now, not when they haven’t learned how to yet. Not when they’ve got it. They’ve got it! They’ve got it!

That, in the end, is what wracks the fit of giggling from that ankle brace in their head. Pinky fingers jabbing a bit too uncomfortably into their tear ducts, hands spread open like spider legs on their face, Ash begins to laugh.

G squats in front of them, G leans on the bed, G beams down at them so big that it must hurt them; not in that it is a particularly wide or moving smile, but instead in that it’s an unpracticed movement. They look kind of wonky, like that. Ash moves their hands up to squish Goliath’s hard cheeks together, make ‘em look even wonkier.

“ _Hh_ hhey there!” they say, making Goliath duck their head in something almost like amusement. “You’re a mighty big fella, _hh_ hhhuh? I like your lithoderms.”

Goliath pokes them in the nose, a bit too rough, like, Yes, Hey There, Please Relinquish Your Grasp On My Delicate Facial Tissue. Manners are what make Ash let go and manners are what make Ash perk up to see what G needs an unoccupied face to do.

The mighty big fella takes a deep breath down to their chest—(very deep, big rib cage)—and frees their own hands from the bed sheets. Then, they poke a thumb right into their chest, dragging it up to their sternum.

Ash blinks.

Goliath repeats the movement, repeats it again. Fumbles to pull a scrap of craft-making-money-making paper, a pencil down to the nub, from their pocket. They scribble on it with uneasy grip for a moment. The word they write is shaky, but easily legible— _Proud._

They point at Ash. They repeat the movement. There are no tears welling in Ash’s dry, composed eyes. No, no, no, that’s just what the nouveau riche look like nowadays. Pink in the sclera, very fashionable.

“We’re nouveau riche,” Ash says out loud, not sniffling at all. The smile on their face shifts to the side, nothing like the even, fluid one that they’re practiced at. “Climbin’ the social ladder, upstarting a business, you and me.”

It’s not much of a business, really. Or, it’s not a business in any way or form. Gambling, of course, is more of an illegal venture into the realms of hey, that shit’s pretty illegal. But, hey, it’s pretty illegal shit that Ash is _genuinely good_ at! Nothing like those sleight-of-hand checks.

While they stare in awe at the awful fresco on the ceiling of their (newly affordable!) hotel room, Goliath begins to pick up the dropped coins from the floor. Ash continues their chatter, breathless. “I counted, we made two-hundred gold pieces in one night. One night, two hundred gold pieces, next night, even more. One night, two hundred gold pieces, a hotel room—”

Ash stands up abruptly, nearly knocking G down. “Holy fuck, wait! Wait!”

Rushing into the bathroom at full speed causes quite a bit of concern, especially amongst business partners. Vaguely unsettled, Goliath trots after them.

It’s just as normal as the rest of the room. There’s a shower, a drain, _and_ a bathtub. Sinks and a fantasy toilet made of porcelain, a mirror with newly-wiped glass, a cushy blue bath rug beneath the both of their bare, dry feet. Cotton towels for drying after they bathe. _Toilet paper._

Even the soap bars are extravagantly middle-class. Soft and creamy, shaped like shells and conches and starfish, owned by the seediest of grandmothers. Lye. Lavender oil. That’s where Ash stands, smelling them in such a cheerful state that one would think that they had just encountered their oldest, deadest friend for the first time in decades of friendlessness. Goliath waves their hand at them to catch some attention, raising their brow bone as a sort of visual inflection.

Ash, charmingly, seconds after shoving soap up their nose: “I am a person of simple pleasures.” They wink, big and exaggerated.

Then, “We’re stealing these.”

They toss the ones they are holding to Goliath, who soundlessly shoves them into the pockets of their pants. Goliath, who soundlessly follows them back into the bedroom, a bit less confused about what all the fuss was about. Those sea shell soap things? Significantly harder not to munch on than leading soap bar brands. They’re pretty exciting, they must admit.

A content sigh, a flop blindly backwards. Once again sprawled over the sheets, Ash tilts their chin up to look G in the face, or the jaw, or the between-the-eyes. “We can do anything right now, y’know?” they say.

Goliath, stockholder, partner, leans all the way down to bump the flat side of their foreheads together, swinging back up afterwards as if that wasn’t unusually affectionate for them. There are two beds in the room they’re staying in, but they seem momentarily content to just sit cross-legged beside Ash on one. Goliath shrugs.

That’s laughable, almost. Ash almost wants to laugh again, almost. “Oh, _c’mon!_ Psh. What do you want?” they ask. “It’s on me, sport.” (Conveniently ignoring that winning the bets was a team effort, as one does.)

G squints up at the ceiling, then back at them. They point to their stomach and nod all mopey, face once again thoughtfully blank. (Conveniently ignoring the nonperishable food that they both already have in their bags, as one does.)

The two of them order room service. It comes within half an hour.

 

 

 

The air smells like coins and sweat and dusty overhead lights. Hoots and hollers are so loud that they’re all that’s audible, even when Ash tosses their winning cards on the table with what should be a thwack. The rough dwarven woman seated across from them is wearing an eyepatch and a scowl.

Yeah, they aren’t hungry anymore, that’s for damn sure.

Ash laughs politely, snapping their fingers beside their head. The pile of tokens disappears and reappears in Goliath’s hands, looking almost more beautiful and polished now that it's theirs. In any case, they shove an elbow into their own stomach and bow at her all dramatic-like. “Thank you for the opportunity, madame!” they say, absolutely glimmering from the confidence boost. “We’ll get this to some needy orphans, don’t you worry.”

They’re pretty sure G is an orphan, at least.

While their partner pockets the gold, Ash kicks up a leg to hoist themself up onto a chair in one smooth movement. With a roll of the wrist, they outstretch their arms to draw even more attention to themself. Goliath had wanted to get out of the bar by midnight, hours away from the time the more seedy of the Goldcliff cortege show up, but Ash is _living._ They’re on a roll! Goliath can suck their winning streak.

They clear their throat over the clapping and laughter, voice so bright that it's basically a beacon. “Attention, everyone! Who here thinks they’re hot shit at cribbage?”

Many more hands than Ash expected go up, though some are held lazily at half-mast. A small crowd had gathered around them and their opponent to watch, but a lot of them look more like grown-up urchins than luckyfucks with actual, legitimate jobs. People make a ruckus out of calling out brags.

“How many of you beautiful folks want to test that?”

Some of the hands go down. _Excellent._ Ash grins.

A long-haired drow man with bags of money, stolen from a bank just hours earlier. An elven kid that writes them a cheque, so young that they haven’t grown into their ears yet. A dragonborn woman that starts laughing when Goliath beats her at a particularly difficult thumb-wrestle, then buys the entire group a round of drinks. There’s even a halfling contortionist spending a night of free time away from the circus, though the only thing she’s got in her pockets is a single six-leaf clover.

A few more games go by, just like that—they lose, sometimes, yeah, but they don’t bet something they can’t live without unless they’re really piss-drunk. G looks a bit stiff in the trapezius, which means they’re gonna get chewed out through wordless chest-yelling later tonight, but they’re too hype to care. When Ash pokes Goliath to let them see the earnings, thumbs through them, they know they’ve got even more than what they had before the chair.

Before they can sidestep away from under G’s arm, there’s a huge hand clenched in the collar of their shirt. Goliath tugs up lightly, yeah, but not lightly enough to keep Ash’s feet flat on the ground. A silent, stifling stare is tilted downward at them.

Ash waves their hands in between the two of their chests in what they think’s supposed to be a calming motion, done by anyone else, but they know it only riles up the big fella even more. They smile all small and sweet, blow the important colleague a kiss, what have you. “Chill out, G, fuck. We can leave now if you _really_ w—”

A voice from behind cuts them off. “Bet I could whip your ass.”

Ash looks over their shoulder, nonplussed. There stands a human man that looks like he spits on the ground for emphasis. Probably has a golden tooth. He’s got a feather in his tricorne, for fucks sake.

Boring.

What really catches their attention is what else he’s wearing, dark red in the shoddy lighting. A… poncho? Made of thick cotton and all drapey, comfortable, over-the-shoulders in the way that’s pretty slick. Warm, distinctive, showy in the way that’s kinda ugly. It looks a bit too small for him, if they’re gonna be honest, but it’s got a sort of characteristic charm that they like. It’s not good fashion, but it is fashion.

“You’re not that great,” says the man, like Ash hadn’t heard him before. “You got lucky a few times, is all. Ever win in an actual game of skill, or do you just suck?”

Ooh, that’s fun! Or even more boring.

Nevertheless, they level a neat expression at him, slant up their voice all cheery. “Yeah? You wanna play, buddy?”

He snorts. “Wouldn’t even be a fair fight.”

This dude doesn’t seem too entertaining, is the thing. It’s basically a crapshoot. He doesn’t have the flair or the hair to seem glib enough to be a challenge, doesn’t have the entourage or the etiquette to seem rich enough to be a source of income. Goliath sends them a Look from their side, like Hey, Shithead, We Don’t Have Time For This, Stop Fucking Around.

Their eyes mull over the poncho again.

“If I win,” says Ash, squint and smile all sharp, “then I get to choose what’s mine.”

 

 

 

With a bucket snug between their knees, Ash almost feels better. Almost, in the way that one is _almost_ pretty sure that they won’t get vomit all over their pants, and is content with it.

The motel room they just checked into is shitty, and dusty, but a necessity. No time for good-smelling soap when one of them is about to puke up their digestive tract. The bad-sick-nasty feeling snuck up on them real quick; they had to jab Goliath in the shoulder to alert them so that the two of them could stumble somewhere more peaceful. Casinos are an apt place to be ill, but that one was a bit too crowded. They were about to be reeling in the dough, yeah, but they secretly think they like their reputation of a snazzy, gambling poncho-beast better than extra booze money.

It kind of hurts, is the thing? Not in the way that their ankle still hurts when they walk around too much without their brace. More like it feels like their intestines are bunching all the way back up into their stomach. More like it feels like their muscles are cut-off sections of fraying rope.

It’s fine, though. They feel all sweaty and their head is pounding and they’re throwing up so much they feel like they’re going to implode, but it’s probably just food poisoning. No biggie.

Their partner, on the other hand, is kinda freaking out.

“ **NO, NO, NO, NO,** ” says Goliath, barks Goliath, chokes Goliath. They’re inconsolable. The mantra itself is stained with a whole lot of tears and shiver-shakes, both physical and vocal. They sound like someone’s threatening to cut off their fucking pinky toe, as if it’s the last pinky toe they have left and they’re real fond of it. Their grandmother gave them that pinky toe before she died; it’s a family keepsake.

Deep and so, so loud, like volume’s never been a thing that they’ve managed to get used to. Like volume’s a thing that comes from practice. This is the first time Ash has ever heard them speak.

Years and years of silence, and they break it for this shit. Ash quietly slips the bucket of fuck off the bed and onto the floor.

Suddenly, Ash has million questions. They materialize so vivid and coppery that they can almost taste them, then fizzle out the second they’re fully-formed. One, only an undertone, continues on beneath those thoughts even through all of G’s yelling. Like, yo, why was there a kid hanging out alone in a big city like that?

(Goliath is a mess, repeating their “ **NO** ”s like a prayer or like a curse, their voice all hoarse from misuse. They keep biting on their knuckles like that’ll keep all the noise inside. Ash worries that they’ll break the skin, then that worry goes away too.)

A flash of a picture in their mind, a small goliath in too-thin cloth for the snow of the Alps, an apple that they must’ve picked off the ground someplace, no guardians to be found. They saw an elf get what was coming to them and wanted to give them what they had left, but were too scared of crowds to stop them from getting their ass kicked in the first place. A half-memory, kind of; there was an illness going around up north at the time, and a few folks didn’t get better. Ash doesn’t dwell on the fact that that first question could be extended to their own kidself, too.

(Goliath’s shoulders keep shaking.)

It is not that time. Instead, they are nearly fifty-seven, and they aren’t dying. Despite the need to retch whenever they move, Ash manages to sit up and curl a finger towards themself. They spread on a smooth smile, tired but not anxious, and say, “C’mere, you big lug.”

It’s throatier, rounder, than they had intended, but it does the trick. Cuts through all the expletives, at least.

Goliath is so frantic in their obedience that they place a knee on the bed to get closer, fingers twitching with an unspoken need to do something. The shitty mattress shifts, making the two of them get so close that Ash can see into their pores. Their white eyes are so wide that Ash can see the pink fleshy bits under all their hard blue skin. Goliath is gasping so hard that they can feel all that humid on their forehead. Distantly, it’s all pretty gross.

Ash lifts an arm to wipe off G’s wet face with their sleeve. “Just a little bug,” they say. “Come on, hey, come on. I just ate something fucked up, shoot.”

Goliath shakes their head, breaths coming out quick and terrified. “ **CAN’T DIE, NO, NO.** ” Shakes their head a second time. As panicked and teary as they seem, the sobbing has stopped.

Ash swallows another heave that’s trying to force its way out their throat. Doesn’t taste too good. When their vision blanks out again, they’ve gotta take a blind-guess move to try and put their hands on Goliath’s face. It takes two tries and their skin is all gross and clammy, but they get it. They stroke a thumb over the bumps on their cheeks.

“Shush,” they mumble, taking a shallow breath over the lump in the back of their mouth. “F’the reaper comes in here I’ll just beat him at blackjack.”

They can’t see Goliath’s expression, no, but the quiet in the room tells them a lot. They can read it even with their eyes closed like this. The company-warm silence is familiar, is forgiving, comforts them enough that their own sickly exhaustion can begin to really shine through.

“M’really good at blackjack,” Ash assures them, nodding, as if they had somehow forgotten.

Keeping their eyes shut really does wonders for the pounding in their skull, the churning in their abdomen. Before, it felt like something inside them was tearing through all the viscera in order to get out. They remembered stories that older kids used to tell them about illithids, wondered if they had larvae, wondered if the babies had somehow gotten into the water supply from the Underdark and then into Ash’s body. That’d be a brain-eating kind of situation. Now they just feel kind of thirsty.

Something cool touches their lip—from sticking their tongue out to feel, they grasp that it’s the rim of a glass cup. For a second they forget who the fuck would do that, then feel immediately and uncomfortably fond.

The pins-and-needles feeling in their body is back. With great effort, Ash reaches out to gently touch Goliath on the wrist. A hard arm curls around their back, keeps them upright with nothing but pressure. Their brow bone thunks lightly forward and into something solid.

They pass out.

 

 

 

From the Alps all the way down to the southern parts that are all desert, it predictably takes a decade or two. They two of them aren’t trying to get down there, of course; they don’t have it marked as the end to a long winding journey, that’s for darn shitting. If they had been writing on a map the whole time, the path they take would have been winding, jotted, sharp and loopy all the same.

Little hash marks for where they went off-roading and couldn’t be sure, really, where they were, but could guess. Weeks spent off in a marsh where they caught tiny lizards to roast on knife-sharpened sticks, eat like particularly stringy corn on the cob. That one time they spent three days just walking the entire perimeter of a town that, years later, they forgot the name of, then remembered again, years later, when their ears went blue and green. An adventure, when they went to the Underdark and _actually_ almost got illithid parasites; that one wouldn’t even be on the map, being so under the ground. They’d have to buy a new map for it, or maybe just because the pen marks would get so deep from retracing that they’d cut it into slivers.

They cycle back and forth between Rockport and Goldcliff, mostly, with frequent stops to Neverwinter in between. The biggest hauls are always from the biggest cities, but it won’t do them good to stay for long. People are dumb, yes, but people are smart, and they won’t keep playing Ash if they keep losing to them, know what they can do with a roll of dice or shuffle of cards or a bad, lucky guess.

Sometimes the little towns, then, are the real jackpots. No one knows them there—(a memory: Ash calling themself Nart for a week, redubbing Goliath as Peebucket so fast that they couldn’t even complain, wearing a fake moustache and plucking their unibrow and slicking their hair back all greasy)—and word spreads quick, but getting owned is more spectacle, more entertainment, than it is a fiscal mishap. Sometimes the little towns, then, are places where they could really put on a show.

Goliath can do without attention. It makes their stomach feel twisty, Ash knows, but Ash needs eyes on them, frowns on them, smiles on them, just as much as they need to breathe and piss.

“I’m going to di _eeee,_ ” says Ash, a quarter way from peeling their eyebags away from their sclera to release some of the hot air that’s building up in their brain, “if I don’t get some fucking validation. I’ve done _so good._ ”

It’s been a month or four of the routine Rockport-Goldcliff-Neverwinter-Goldcliff-Rockport circle. There are always feet to move, always something to hustle, always things to see and illegal races to watch, but Ash is bored even still. They get all twitchy when they’re restless, scratch at their face more. With no experience to speak of, they can’t handle familiar sights or staying in one place. It makes them feel like a plastic Fantasy Costco bag.

With plastic in mind, they sprawl out like a soda-bottle ragdoll, taking up all of Goliath’s personal space as if Goliath isn’t infinitely bigger and more imposing. Their body seems to be vibrating, like they’re buzzing with wantneeds, and G wantneeds to swat them away like the monkeybee that they are sometimes. They ask, “Did you see that royal flush I did?”

Well. G is a good sport about it.

That’s how they end up on the road again. They buy horses with royal flush gold, enjoy it when the horses are older and more feeble than previously anticipated. Ash, of course, loves the variety of the villages they pop between like acne, while Goliath enjoys the peace that comes from a lack of neon signs. Avoiding Neverwinter on the way down, they make it to the Woven Gulch.

It’s an impossible dichotomy of dusty brown palettes and red, red clay. It’s full of canyons that weave like bracelets or nests of snakes, carved out so long ago by the rivers that are no longer extant. Ash loves it. Goliath thinks it's too warm. Ash calls them a spoilsport, maintains that it’s sticky in a fun way. Goliath thinks it’s too warm.

It’s an executive decision made by G that has them exploring the biggest canyon first, a choice made with the thought that there may be at least a puddle of water that hadn’t dried up yet, a drop. They point at the inside of their dry mouth, gesturing to the lack of spit strings from the roof to their tongue. All the while, Ash patpats at the bottom of their chin to get them to close it, their nose wrinkling at the bellybutton-esque smell.

It’s there, under that mindset, that they find their newest town.

“Golly, it’s like a meteor hit this shit,” says Ash, breathless from the sweat sticking their throat together on the inside. They point at the wall of the canyon around Refuge, go, “Check it.”

It’s impossibly smooth red, red clay and dusty brown sedimentary stone, just like the rest, a huge cylinder of a space with clean-cut lines that seem to suggest a force field abjuration spell of some sort—but there isn’t any. Goliath grunts in apprehension.

Ash grunts back, a half-hearted mockery that somehow sounds accurate to a deeper rib cage than they have, and assures them with a, “Wow, pleee _eeee_ eeease. Very accomplished sorcerer, remember? I’d think I’d know a barrier if I walked into it, bless your heart.”

And, so, the two of them walk into it. There’s a general store, aptly named with a Help and a Tons, that has a mirror and clothes and an overbearing aura of mom-and-pop like they’ve never before seen.

Ash, with their dusty red (clay; sedimentary stone; it’s almost like they belong here) poncho and bandana, finally feels like a particularly fancy cowhand. They laughingly offer to buy G their very own wide-brimmed hat and leather vest from Helpingtons. G agrees, if only so they get tassels to chew on when they’re nervous, and it completes the duo aesthetic. Everything is in place to less look like strangers, more look like very earnest folkes from nearby settlements. Trustworthy, they are, just like this town.

Besides the suspicious rock formations, Refuge isn’t suspicious at all.

Walking in, coming through the entrance, it is easy to not notice that there is no inscription on the gate. It stands tall and uncomfortable, passive, almost like it’s waiting for one.

 

 

 

The two of them never really get to know June, small and too young to con in her light-colored dress; her father, a man with too much integrity to spend much time in the places they are intimately acquainted with. Certainly, they don’t meet the man in the red clothing, though they hear possibly-only-rumor stories from drunk bar patrons while he is present. Either way, the new statue’s robe has folds that become ingrained in the foundation of Refuge.

Somehow, without knowing, Ash and Goliath stand on that foundation. With a stable enough base, Ash’s flightiness stops, fizzles into a confidently arched back and swinging feet on tables. Goliath never really gets used to the heat, develops a habit of chewing on their vest instead. The two of them barely even notice that weeks have passed since they collectively decided they were going to partner through.

The timeline gets fuzzy, confusing. It’s something they don’t question, at the time, because no one does. They’re only there for a few months before things begin to go, begin to stop and happen and rewrite old history. Nothing seems important enough to be explained, so they simply acknowledge the fact that there’s new management and continue their hustle on like clockwork.

They do get to know Roswell.

 

 

 

Ash is, admittedly, perhaps a smidge too drunk to make a good impression.

Crawling through villages for almost a year, there is one thing for certain. Most things are not certain. But the one thing that is certain? That one, one, singular thing? It’s that if a town has less than one hundred people, there’s gotta be at least a place to get shitfaced.

A pub, a bar. This place, suitably southwest and all mud, all the way through, has a saloon. Following the beefiest person on the sidewalk has them there, excluding Goliath, just like it always does. It looks like shit from the outside; the wood is so old that the fibers in it soften, smell like mothballs. Everything about it is everything Ash is casually into, like dirty knees and gymsocks pulled over hands instead of gloves.

Ash goes looking for the in-between places the second they get to a fully there place. They like to slip behind the floor beams with their mountain of dough and cradle some gold coins between their ankles.

Here, kicking open the oletimey swing-doors like they’re a person that means something, they know they could get used to this. Like they’re an appropriately oletimey villain with an eyepatch, a bandana; out to steal horses and chew tobacco till their gums are as black as their heart. They just need someone to gouge out one of their eyes, then they’re set! If only they weren’t so attached to those.

The Davy Lamp, Ash had mouthed earlier, tracing their sharp eyes along the hanging sign in the same way a kid would lick an ice cream cone. Now, their eyes aren’t quite so… not blurry. It’s getting a bit difficult to see over all the excitement.

“You can’t be serious,” says the barkeep, the topside of her curly hair getting so frizzy that it must be from stress. She’s an elf, all evening-purple colored like the belowground ones, but she doesn’t seem to have much of a kick in her step tonight. Ba da dum. Tish.

A crowd has gathered.

“Sh’yeah, sport!” they laugh, a million times bubblier, “Buddy, buddy, buddy. Hand over th’ gems, will ya? I beat you, I beat you, I won. Come on.” Ash reaches over to tug at her sleeve, thinks better of themself when Goliath grabs at the back of their poncho. But only because they like not being choked by momentum.

Behind them, Goliath is glancing around like they’re panicking now, eyes wide with the fear that looks more like stony-cold anger when coupled with the set of their frown. Their palm is so clammy that it’s soaking the red fabric even browner, something resembling stale blood. The group huddling in a circle around them shuffle awkwardly under the heavy gaze, just as unsure of what to do but showing it more openly.

Ash scowls all fluttery, all crocodile tears, dead skink under a leaf. “What? Fuckin’ quit it!” they say as they bat their hands back, no emotion behind it, “You saw it, I won that bet fair and square. The old lady tripped, just like I said! That’s all legal.”

“Nope, not quite!” comes a tinny little voice from the back.

A pause, dust-scented.

Slowly, like someone has an incredibly rusty knife up to their collective throats, both Ash and Goliath swivel their shoulders around to look. In the back, jangle-voiced, is a huge fella wearing a suit of armor and a pound of goop. Their wide-brimmed hat looks cooler than Goliath’s, no matter how much money Ash spent on it. It’s all in the posture. A little bird, red as anything, perches on their shoulder.

They’re holding out a sheriff’s badge.

“Howdy,” they chirp, almost chipper, “you’re the new folks in town, huh? I think we ought’a get more acquainted.” And oh, there’s the danger! It’s all in the undertone.

Ash stands up on their bar chair, vaulting over the counter towards the only open window in the establishment. Immediately. Without thinking, Goliath sticks out a leg to force their knees backwards, scoops them up in their arms before they can hit the ground. Immediately.

Originally just loose enough to be comfortable, G holds Ash in a vice grip when they begin kicking and punching, gnawing little rodent marks in their shirt collar, making gurgling noises with the roof of their mouth. Not much changes about the situation for all of three moments, Ash’s stuffy voice eventually dying out.

Finally relenting, finally, to not being able to free themself with a strength contest alone, they smile up at the goopy person. As if they hadn’t just been through a tantrum. As if there wasn’t drool coming out the side of their sheepish grin. They’re a million times less charismatic with an unhealthy flush to their face, being held all tacky like a particularly large and pedantic toddler.

“Uh,” Ash says. Clears their throat. “Didn’t know the by-laws?”

“Uh-huh,” says the sheriff.

Refuge’s holding cells are pretty nice, all things considered. The weather is lovely.

Goliath grunts at them from across it, raising an eyebrow as well as they can without having eyebrows. Their brow muscle juts up through their thick skin in a way that’s particularly unsavory. Ugly.

“Haha, yeah.” Ash doesn’t even try to smile at them, syrupy tired like somebody poured molasses in their hair and they just spent eight hours trying to wash it off in a river. Their head thwacks back against the cobblestone wall. “Sorry, big guy. The weather is lovely...”

The spell is, well, dispelled. G lets Ash sleep with their head on their knee, fully out of the dog house with one rarely-uttered ess word.

The next morning, hangover secured directly in between their ears, Ash makes a clear-cut decision to apologize to the poor barlady. Goliath writes her a card. The two of them make it out of the office where they spent their very first, monumental night with only a volunteer service fine, make their way over to the dingy motel to rent a single-bed room.

Later, that afternoon, they learn her name is Ren.

 

 

 

_“Yeah, I mean, I work here, so that, that—that’ll be great for me,”_ _says Ren, a bit in the future but not too much, a bit in the past but rewritten, "_ _Oh! And Ash is always here, so, um… that should be great.”_

 

 

Eventually, the motel stops charging them for their stay. The woman at the front desk seems to forget that they don’t own the place.

Roswell doesn’t take too much of a liking to them, regardless of how fond Ash is of huge hulking fellas that use they and wear cowboy hats. It’s understandable, really. No matter how small the town, no matter how western themed, no matter how brown and rustic the buildings, gambling the way they do is still only very dubiously legal. Illegal.

Both Ash and Goliath stay out of Roswell’s way, for the most part. It’s almost written in contract between them, save Ash only barely being able to hold onto a pen. Pros and cons, clauses, rules: If you don’t scam or be inappropriately inebriated on the street, you can scam and be inappropriately inebriated in The Davy Lamp.

On one of the runthroughs, that’s where they meet the heroes, though those three don’t look like it at the time. Not like they would if they _knew_ they were heroes, all glitz and glam like Ash would be inclined to.

They look like fresh meat, a soft chew. Gum. Ash has just gotten around to sizing them up for the first time, teeth sharp and good for biting, when the little one yells for someone to arm-wrestle his friend. Diamonds are on the line, implicit under his tone of challenge.

The big one is _puny_ compared to Goliath.

Ha. Ash’s teeth, sharp and good for biting, flash all shiny when they smile at him.

Some of the townspeople are jealous; there’s around sixty of them, tallied and in total, and only a few folks meet The Three. Fewer of them have conversations, and fewer still have multiple. Only a handful become friends. It’s only reasonable to wish for more stories of the storybook characters that saved the world.

Goliath sniffs and privately counts everyone else as lucky, patting their partner on the earshell to quell them, time passing back around again for the first time in a while. It ticks forward all stuttery like it’s just remembered how.

 

 

 

Ash is kind of pissed.

“Y’know, I’m kind of pissed,” they say to Ren, rolling their ankle to adjust the brace on it. After the afternoon rush, everyone but the two of them have gone home to families and friends. For all their insistence that they’re staying behind to help clean up, they mostly just want to be around something familiar for a bit longer.

Funny how things change, like that.

Ren hums, accommodating in the practiced way that barkeeps have to perfect. “Are you now?” She places an ale glass top down, washed and dried.

“Abso-positively,” Ash says, “the three goonies fucked me over twice, the only times we interacted, and they get a goddamn party.”

A smile quirks at the edge of her lip. “Oh, that’s why we’re celebrating them.”

“Fuck off.”

She laughs, then, full out. Holds her hands up placatingly, not even bothering to put down her washcloth. “Kidding, kidding! Sort of.” She winks. “Whatever I say here doesn’t really matter, though. You’re going to elaborate no matter what.”

“So,” Ash begins, which makes Ren laugh again, “first they lose against me in a bet and don’t pay up, which makes ‘em demons and liable for ten years in fist jail, for fists. Then I lose another _ten whole diamonds_ to them for those mighty stupid magic lessons that, y’know, weren’t _even a thing that happened._ ”

“Pal, I feel like you’re maybe forgetting all those pretty significant time shenanigans?”

“Uh, doesn’t fuckin’ matter! A bet’s a bet, _pal._ ”

“Taako literally casted a Level 7 spell on me.”

Ash waves a hand. “You’re fine. I, on the other hand, got fuckin’ swindled.”

“A bit excessive, Ash.” She’s smiling wider, now, though. Little twinklies in her rounded teeth. It’s worth it to put on a show to up her energy, even if it’s self-serving.

They put their hand down on the wood so that it makes a psuedo-dramatic Pap! noise. “You graduated from Wizard Partyboner School, even got a godsdamned diploma, yeah? I paid _ten times as much as you_ and didn’t even get a howdy from that prick.”

Ren pats at their wrist all sympathetically, or maybe just to tell them to pick it up off the bar so that she can wipe. “I think he was just sparing my feelings, honestly.”

“I’m just saying!” Ash groans, gesturing in the air above their head. “No one ever thinks about the ole Ashmeister, do they? No one ever cares about _my_ feelings!”

As if to contest that statement, Goliath walks through the saloon doors of the Davy Lamp and heads right for the two of them.

Ash swivels in their chair, all the way back, to jab an accusing finger in their direction. “ _You!_ Where do you think you’ve been, lord of shits? Looked high ‘nd low for your bumpy ass and all I got for my troubles was sore fuckin’ feet.” They slam the flats of their shoes down on the floor, as if for emphasis, as if it wasn’t making their feet hurt even more. Their ankle throbs.

Ren twiddles her fingers at Goliath, smiling tiredly. The happy light in her eyes is only somewhat exhausted by all the extra people that came in for celebratory booze. “Hiya. I cut them off at two drinks today.”

Ash sniffs. “I’m a paying customer, Ren,” they say, vaguely offended and trying to milk it for theatrics.

“You’re taking them, aren’t you?” she continues. Her voice goes all low and fond. “Warning you, they’ll complain your ears off if you let them.” She reaches over again for another pat, this time over where Ash has lazily unfurled their bandana to cover their entire forehead.

“ _Let me,_ then,” says Ash, only a grumble. “Not like you _use them._ ”

Goliath pokes them in the chin. Ash pretends to bite the air in front of their finger. Ren hides a tiny pearl of laughter behind her curly fringe. A stalemate.

They wrap an arm under Ash’s armpits, scoop them up with a second arm under their knees, curl them against their chest. As an afterthought, they take some diamonds out of their pants pocket and roll them towards the till.

“What’re those for?” Ren asks. Her eyes widen in realization. “Oh! For babysitting, I get it.”

“Y’all fucking suck.” Ash’s voice is half-muffled from where they’re knocking their nose against G’s clavicle. As hard as they’re gritting their hands, they don’t seem willing to even try to struggle out of Goliath’s grasp this time around, like it's not even worth the effort.

Goliath spares a hand to wave at her.

Before Ash even knows it, they’re outside. The more they think, the more G seems to smell like sweat. They pull back their face in disgust, but G isn’t looking at them.

In the fading sunlight and flickering lanterns, Goliath’s face looks just like it did when they first met. Blank. In shadow. Incredibly intimidating. Ash reaches up to boop them on the nose, and G’s lips twitch up minutely.

They’re in public, yeah, but no one’s out anymore; this schmoopy shit hardly ruins the large bloke’s reputation of having strong arms. One last night to coop up in little houses before everyone can fuck off from this place. Ash wonders what the point of that is, then realizes that Goliath is carrying them back to their shared hotel room. They settle back against their bicep, the teensiest bit shameful without even knowing why.

“Hey there,” Ash says, a tired mockery of their own smooth inflections. “You’re a mighty big fella, huh?” It comes to their attention that Goliath is older than them, now, with little creases between their eyebrows and at the corners of their mouth. They swallow. “I like your lithoderms.”

When Goliath doesn’t respond, they shove their face into the sweat-smell again. “Mn’kay, I can roll with that too. Where were you?”

Ash’s hands curl into random, unnecessary words on their lap. Left hand in a fist, pushed into their palm. Left hand opens and stretches, right hand chops it at a right angle. Right fingertips at their mouth, moving them down and away, ending with their palm facing where their poncho has bunched up over their legs. Help. Stop. Bad.

Ash tilts up their chin to glare at them, but Goliath doesn’t even deign to lend them a shrug. They chew some meat off of the inside of their cheek, say, “You need a shower. M’guessing you were lurking around the fucking shindig? Traitor, you are. Ought’a take you to court, breaking our contract like that.”

Now G opens their mouth like they want to say something, then closes it to shake their head. Shakes their head again. Shakes their head again. The shaking gets so loose that it looks more like they’re scratching their neck with their chin than actually trying to communicate.

“Hm,” says Ash. Then, “Put me down a sec.”

They slip from their partner’s grasp. With their feet firmly on the ground, they turn to Goliath and twist their hand in circular motions, like, Go On; like, I’m Listening. Ash does their best poker face, which, honestly, is very good.

A pause.

Goliath, their mouth jittering, points to their sternum. They open their arms and then move their hands quickly back in front of their chest, fingers splayed, one above the other.

I’m scared.

Ash’s poker face fades with a start, their brow furrowing and their lips curling into a strained smile. They repeat the motion to Goliath. I’m scared. They laugh a bit, lightly but still deflecting, and hug themself around the waist.

“This, um,” they begin, for once in their life at a loss for words. “This is a bit weird, I think. The situation, I mean.” And the way the two of them are feeling about it.

The sky has changed even more, turned dark gray instead of pretty orange. Some sort of insect chirps in the distance, but Ash, for all the years spent in this place, has never been good at identifying which is which.

They sigh. Tap a finger on the side of their jaw. “Remember the good ole days? Forty-eight hours in Goldcliff, then we’re gone. It’s been a ride, yeah? This is only hard ‘cuz we’ve got too used to staying in one place.”

At the slumped curve of Goliath’s shoulder’s, they shake their hands wildly. “Not to suggest,” they say, “that we’ve _gotta_ go back to that! I just thought we were goin’ to, y’know, for prosperity’s sake. Hard to make money off gambles when everyone here knows they’re gonna lose, ha.”

Their smile flashes their white, white teeth but doesn’t meet their eyes. It’s been awhile since they’ve felt anything less than self-assured. “Stay or go, doesn’t matter to me at all. I’m the one in debt to _you,_ partner, ad verbatim, or whatever. You don’t even really need to decide right this moment, either. What I’m saying, is, uh.” They breathe in through their teeth. It’s a tinny little sound.

G hasn’t moved, or responded, or said anything, but the trembling has gotten worse. They blink a bit more, as if their eyes are hazy. It’s a kind of sinking feeling. A blooming, spreading, wide-open kind of sadness, so fond that it hurts to think about.

“Together?” Ash asks, their voice only wavering a little.

Goliath, past all their blankness, looks almost like they could cry.

Ash toe-steps closer, all the way until they could reach out and touch, reach out and hug, if they really wanted to, if they could fit their arms all the way around Goliath’s waist. They do reach out, but not the whole way yet. It’s a gesture they know from years of practice, years of betting, years of risks and smiles and sweet-smooth voices all the way through.

They hold out their hand for a business shake.

**Author's Note:**

> only took me months! add all this to their taz wiki page lmao
> 
> follow me @ deltaako.tumblr.com


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